"Let me get you some food," Jacob said uneasily.
"No. Do you know what I need more than anything else at this moment?"
"No. What?"
"Just the touch of a human hand. Just to tell me that my eyes and ears are not deceiving me, that I am not alone."
He sat beside her on the couch and gently took her hand between his two.
"If they could see me," she said, tears hanging on her lower lashes.
"Who?"
"The old men of the Kremlin. They would laugh. The great Polish marshal asking a man to hold her hand because she fears being alone."
"It must have been rough," Jacob said.
"It didn"t seem so at the time," she said musingly. "I was alone, and that was the situation, and there was nothing to do, short of giving up, but go on." She sighed shudderingly. "My mother told me when I was just a girl, Theresita, don"t try to be a boy. You are a girl, and you should act like a girl." And now, ratherbelatedly, I feel very girlish and weepy and-" Her eyes-went wide. "I"m taking advantage. Your wife-"
"I have no wife," Jacob said.
"Please don"t think-"
"I"m thinking nothing. If I"d been alone in the jungle for months, then with those Whorsk things, I"d probably be yelling for pain pills and the nearest psychiatrist and hanging onto your skirt screaming."
She laughed, hiccuped with a sob, and burst into a very unfeminine spasm of giant, racking sobs.
Jacob whispered soothing sounds into her ear, enfolding her, holding her tightly. "Hush, now. You"re safe with us."
It went on for perhaps a full minute, then she swallowed hard.
"All right," she said, straightening. "That"s that. Thank you for your shoulder."
"Any time," he a.s.sured her.
"Now I am going to see if this great American settlement has gallons and gallons of hot water."
"Okay. Sounds reasonable," he said, thankful she had gotten herself under control. He was afraid he"d have to send for a medic.
"Where do they keep the towels?"
He went into the bath and opened the linen cabinet. There was a stock of neatly folded towels. In a drawer beside the cabinet Jackie had left some plain, serviceable nightgowns. He selected one, handed it to Theresita, and turned to leave.
"Commander?" she said, panic in her voice.
"Yes?" he asked, turning.
"I"m not going to cry anymore."
"Good."
"May I ask you to do something very silly?"
He grinned. "If it"s not too silly."
"I"m not really trying to seduce you..."
He waved one hand at her in negation.
"Stay until I"m out of the shower?"
"Sure." He mixed a drink. He was remembering how she looked there on that beach as she ran toward him-lithe, a big woman, big woman"s body without an ounce of fat, long-legged and graceful, and how she had felt in his arms. Oddly enough, he felt no heat, no desire, only a musing appreciation of beauty.
The shower ran, a roar of distant rain. And he grinned as she suddenly burst into song, singing a Red Army marching cadence in Russian.
After a while the shower stopped and then, five minutes later, the door opened. She had fluffed up her short, chopped hair and was wearing one of Jackie"s gowns, which failed totally to conceal her slim waist, her outthrust of hip, her proud b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She seemed to be suddenly aware of her body. The gown, thin, showed the browner areolas, the thrust of nipples, the prominent vee of her pelvic bone. She walked swiftly to the bed and threw back the coverings. "Ah, clean sheets. " She slipped in, and pulled the sheets up to her neck.
"All snug?" he asked, standing.
"Very." She nodded in the manner of the Whorsk without realizing it.
"Okay. Look, there"s the communicator on the table. Just press the red b.u.t.ton, and you"ll get the duty officer. If you need me, my quarters are still here on the ship."
"Thank you."
"Have a nice nap."
He had opened the door and turned around to look at her. Her eyes were wide, and there was an odd look on her face.
"Not yet, huh?" he asked. He walked back to the bed, pulled up a chair, and reached under the cover to take her right hand in his. "All right, I"ll stay right here until you"re sleeping."
"I feel so stupid." Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Close your eyes."
"Yes, sir."
He looked at her. Her round face was deeply tanned and totally unlined, yet she had to be at least in her late thirties to have attained such high military rank. As he looked, she started shivering.
"Are you cold?" he asked.
She didn"t open her eyes. "Once we jumped by parachute into the snow on a training exercise," she said. "The drifts were ten feet deep in places. The temperature was twenty below.Then I was cold."
"And now? Want me to get another blanket?"
"How far will your patience last with me?" she asked with a sigh, opening her eyes. "No, no blanket.
We slept in arctic tents. The small heaters we carried in our packs were almost worthless. We had only one way to keep warm in the night. Two crowded into one arctic sleeping bag, then we were warm." Now ain"t that a kick? he thought.I"m actually jealous .
"I was a captain then," she continued. "My second in command was a young lieutenant from Orel. We had to give signals when we wanted to turn over, for there was only room to sleep spoon fashion. He had the hottest body I have ever touched. And he was so polite. He would say, "Comrade Captain, may we turn now, please?" And once in his sleep he put his arm around me and woke up and spent the next ten minutes apologizing. It was so cold." She toughed. "The poor boy would have been shocked had he knownmy thoughts."
"h.o.r.n.y old soldier, huh?" Jacob asked.
"Only in my secret mind," she said, looking at him. "As now."
"Now are you trying to seduce me?"
"No." She was still shivering. "In my secret mind I am imagining your warmth pressed against my back."
"And if I"m not as trustworthy as your lieutenant from Orel?"
She shrugged.
There was one amazing thing about women, Jacob thought, as he lay, stripped to his service shorts, with his arm around her waist and his body curled, spoon fashion, pressed against her back, her rump, her legs. They can be as athletic as all h.e.l.l, not an ounce of fat, all muscle and tendons. And yet, if they"re not totally emaciated, they"re so soft. He felt and heard her breathing deepen. He could not have gone to sleep with a bottle of sleeping pills. He let his hand flatten on her stomach, soft-hard, rising and falling with her breathing, smelled her clean, fresh hair in his face.
Lady, he thought,things must be one h.e.l.luva lot different in Russia .
He felt himself becoming aroused and pulled away so that he wouldn"t press against her. She murmured in her sleep, turned, threw one arm across his chest, one heated, soft thigh across his thighs just below that evidence that he was not as cool as a Russian soldier in a sleeping bag. He ground his teeth and bit his lip to keep his body from trembling. Her gown had ridden up. He could feel, against his bare thigh, below his shorts, a heat that was greater than any other body heat. He ached. He itched. His every muscle wanted to move, but she was sleeping so soundly, so peacefully, so trustfully.
He awoke with a feeling of something missing. He put out his hand, and the bed was empty and the lights were on. She was sitting, in the borrowed skirt and tunic, in the chair beside the bed.
"Thank you," she said, when his eyes found hers.
"No problem," he said, wondering how he had ever managed to fall asleep with the most beautiful leg in at least two worlds thrown across him. "Line of duty."
She smiled. "Really?"
He sighed. "I"m going to see a lot of you, you mad Russian, but don"t you ever, ever ask me to get in bed with you again withoutvery serious intent." "All right," she agreed.
A small group of video technicians were waiting with the captain for her. She told her story with great animation, weepingly as she described the mutiny and the destruction of theKarl Marx , musingly as she spoke of her time on the river, a bit proudly as she told of killing thekkkee , with puzzlement as to her recovery, quickly and quite businesslike in regard to her time with the Whorsk.
Then she answered questions about the life habits of the insect people, and there was a proper amount of interest and a bit of shock at her description of what she had once thought of as the bug orgies and the ceremony of the selection of the egg that would survive and the eating of others. Duncan Rodrick was most interested in the other society of people along what the Whorsk called the Great Misty River, and she gave her opinion, that the River People were merely a ruling cla.s.s, a cla.s.s of priests, demanding and receiving gifts and obedience from the other Whorsk.
Her knowledge of the native Omegans, plus what the Americans already knew, convinced most that there was nothing to fear from the Whorsk as long as the natives were prevented from obtaining deadly modern weapons.
"They are so different that we will never be able to live with them in complete harmony," she said. "But from what I have learned, this is a big planet. Perhaps, with much study and much patient effort, we can coexist with them."
The story had been heard, with avid interest, by the entire colony. When the cameras and microphones had been turned off and the technicians had gone, Theresita turned to Rodrick. There were only three of them in the room-them plus Jacob.
"Captain," she said, "perhaps I am, perhaps I am not, the only Russian alive. Whichever it may be, this Russian asks you for a place in your wonderful colony. If you will have me, a.s.sign me where you will."
"I think, Marshal, that you will be a valuable addition to our group," Rodrick said.
"Not a marshal. No longer," she said. "May I be just Theresita?"
Rodrick smiled.
"I"m going to show her around," Jacob said, "with permission to skip my duty standby."
"Permission granted," Rodrick said.
Everyone wanted to meet the Russian lady. She remembered a few names, among them that of a pale, thin, and beautiful woman named Sage Bryson, who, sitting on the beach between Paul Warden and Evangeline Burr, smiled and showed a great deal of curiosity about how it felt to be alone in the jungle for so long. And Theresita was pleased and made happy by the bubbling enthusiasm of a handsome boy named Clay and a lovely girl named Cindy who clung to Clay"s hand all the time they were talking.
A s.p.a.ce Service beautician trimmed Theresita"s hair, evening up the chopping she"d given it, and the ship"s tailor shop ran her off a plain, white uniform with matching shorts, skirt, and slacks. She ate a huge synthasteak, drank a quart of fresh orange juice, couldn"t believe that the admiral was an android, fell in love with Cat, and found herself walking, at dusk, beside Jumper"s Run with a thoroughly exhausted Apache. "Such wonderful people," she said. "Are all Americans like that?"
"We have our bad apples, too," he replied.
"So many of them are happily married," she said. "And the children! The young ones! How beautiful."
She reached out and took Jacob"s hand. "Not many singles, Jacob," she went on. "I heard an expression. Someone said that someone else had chosen. Is that what it is called?"
"Yes," he said.
"And you have not chosen?"
"Not until yesterday, when I saw a certain Russian soldier naked on a beach."
"Be serious," she said.
He stopped and turned her to face him. He leaned to kiss her, and she pulled back and put her hand over his mouth. "Do you know what I feared most when I was naked and alone?"
"No," he said.
"I was afraid my teeth would decay and fall out. I brushed them with twigs, and sometimes with fine sand, and with salt after I was with the Whorsk."
"That"s an odd subject to bring up to keep from being kissed," Jacob said.
"Not to keep from being kissed," she said, "but to let you know how happy I am that my teeth didn"t decay and fall out. Then you wouldn"t have looked at me the way you"re looking at me now."
"I"m not so sure," he said. "I think you"d be beautiful even without teeth."
She laughed. "No one has ever, ever accused me of being beautiful."
"You"re guilty nevertheless," he said.
"You know the trouble with you American Indians?"
"I could name several."
"You talk too d.a.m.ned much when there"s kissing to be done," she said.
They could see the lights of Hamilton from where they stood. A game of tennis was going on under the lights, and there was a sound of young voices. The entertainment robot, Juke, was wheeling around and playing music, a waltz. The strains floated up to them, and down across the bay, which was rippled by a light southeast wind. The night was cool, and from the southern horizon came the flash of lightning and the rumble of distant thunder.
"Do you first want a chance to look around to check out the other singles?" Jacob asked.
"Why do you ask?" "Because I have chosen. And because it"s only fair. You may think you care about me only because I rescued you. What if another man had flown that scout? Would we still have fallen in love eventually?"
She removed her hand from his, and turned away.